New PC specs

Theironhand

Hey guys my new PC is coming in a couple of days and I'm wondering if I should upgrade anything.

Specs:
AMD FX-4100 processor (3.6 GHZ)
8GB of RAM
500GB SATA hard drive (Upgrading to 1T)
NVIDIA GT 520 (Might be upgrading to GT 560)
480 Watt PSU
Windows 7


I've been thinking of upgrading the GPU to a NVIDIA GT 560, but I don't know if I have to upgrade to PSU if I did upgrade it. Also if I did not upgrade the GPU how do you think it will run games like Minecraft, TF2, Civ 5 and other similar games.

Cliff_Forster

@Theironhand - If you are concerned about power draw I'd encourage you to either consider a Radeon 7770 or a 7850. The 7770 will save you about $50 and litterally half the power draw of the GTX560 and for the games you list it will run them all at high spec at great framerates. The GTX560 is a faster card and the 7850 a touch faster than that, but for those games you will not require it. If you are concerned about long term performance, say you might take an interest in something like Battlefield 3 later on, or consider driving more than a single monitor, consider spending a little extra on the Radeon 7850, it's still a much better archatecture in terms of power draw (about 45 watts less at load) while slightly outperforming the GTX560.

For clarification, what is the make and model of your PSU? There are great 480 watt PSU's and not so great. There is no other PC part where manufaturers will play more games than on the PSU.

Tim

Get something with an Intel CPU and AMD graphics card. And add a quality brand of power supply, 600 watts or above.

Theironhand

Get something with an Intel CPU and AMD graphics card. And add a quality brand of power supply, 600 watts or above.

A computer with a Intel CPU is costly .

@Theironhand - If you are concerned about power draw I'd encourage you to either consider a Radeon 7770 or a 7850. The 7770 will save you about $50 and litterally half the power draw of the GTX560 and for the games you list it will run them all at high spec at great framerates. The GTX560 is a faster card and the 7850 a touch faster than that, but for those games you will not require it. If you are concerned about long term performance, say you might take an interest in something like Battlefield 3 later on, or consider driving more than a single monitor, consider spending a little extra on the Radeon 7850, it's still a much better archatecture in terms of power draw (about 45 watts less at load) while slightly outperforming the GTX560.

For clarification, what is the make and model of your PSU? There are great 480 watt PSU's and not so great. There is no other PC part where manufaturers will play more games than on the PSU.

I have no idea what type the PSU is, all it say's is "Generic" Power System Unit. It won't be that much of a hassle to upgrade it, but I don't want to do it unless I really need to. I like the 7770 and it's $50 savings, so that one is the one I would get.

Cliff_Forster

Good call @Theironhand - The Radeon 7770 is far more efficent and my bet is while its probably an okay power supply, it's probably not the kinda supply thats intended for the most aggresive graphics cards. The 7770 will play all the games listed at high spec 1920X1080 resolution. It will play any modern game nicely, perhaps not with AA and AF and all the options turned to high, but it's a solid card and not a bad deal for $130 or so.